Steve Wynn Knew Back In The 1980s That Atlantic City Was Doomed For Obsolescence

Casino magnate Steve Wynn already knew Atlantic City would become
obsolete in the 1980s, when he sold his casino there less than a
decade after opening.

Wynn, who got into the Las Vegas casino business when he was 23,
started the Golden Nugget Atlantic City in 1978. It opened a year
or two later, but Wynn sold it in 1987.

In a WSJ video interview with Peter Robinson from the Hoover
Institution, Wynn said the local Atlantic City government was
"corrupt and stupid" and that the state government wasn't
stepping up to take advantage of Atlantic City's potential.
According to Wynn, this is what led to the city's decline.

From the interview:

"And I kept saying to governors
of New Jersey: 'You must take control of the central planning of
this community if it’s to save itself. Right now you’re the
monopoly on the East Coast; that will end someday. And the
infrastructure of this city has to be so big, that it’s like Las
Vegas. Las Vegas is surviving in spite of everything because the
infrastructure here is so big. The menu for guests is so great.
Atlantic City can’t just be a local crap game. It’s gotta be a
destination city.'

"But for that, the government had to take over – the New Jersey
state government, not the local Atlantic City government, which
was pathetic. Well they wouldn’t. And they didn’t. And I came at
one point of the view that Atlantic City was never going to take
advantage of its opportunity and would eventually face
obsolescence, which I’m afraid is true today."

Wynn said he was first drawn to business in Atlantic City after
fellow casino owner Jack Davis told him he was making $150,000 a
day.

"We did $700,000 the first three days in slots," Davis told him,
Wynn said in the interview. "We were having trouble counting the
money from the tables, because it's all stacked up in box
crates."